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Copy 1 




THE 



BIETH AND DEATH 



OF 



NATIONS. 



0ttgltt in i\u ^ilsisi. 



BY 



,<??*?*% 



JAMES McKAYE, 



, \ 



REPRINTED FROM TEE REBELLION RECORD, 



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1862. 



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History of the War for the Union, 

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p A C ? 

irS CAUSES AND CONSE^ENCES, .\ 

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THE SPIRIT OF THE PULPIT 

With Reference to the present Crisis. 
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THE 



^' 



BIRTH AND DEATH OF NATIONS; 



A THOUGHT FOR THE CRISIS. 



In the primitive ages of the world, long 
before the dawn of history, while Prometheus 
lay chained to the rock, and the men of Shi- 
nar, dispersed by the divine anger, settled 
themselves in new habitations, there was sent 
into that far-off eastern land, the earliest home 
of the race, a messecger from the celestial 
powers. With a virgin's head and face, she 
had the stalwart body of a lion and the strong 
wings of an eagle. She had been taught by 
those primeval intelligences and instructors 
of the gods, the Muses, and knew all the wis- 
dom of the ages, past and to come ; and her 
commission was to stand on the waysides, and 
in the great thoroughfares of the people, and 
put questions — riddles — to the passers by. 
Questions, doubtless very apt, significant, and 
necessary to be put, but often to that infant 
race, most obscure, enigmatical, and difficult 
of right answer. And yet there was no es- 
cape ; answered they must be, wisely, justly, 
and to the point, under penalty of a sudden 
and sure destruction, — for such was the inexor- 
able decree of the inscrutable Powers that rul- 
ed that ancient world. To-day even, whoever 
likes, and can afford it, may see her colossal im- 
age cut out of a black basaltic spur of the Lib- 
yan mountains, overlooking the Nile, a neighbor 



and meet companion of the great Pyramid of 

Cheops. 

To the Greeks the Sphinx was the offspring 
of Chimera. In disparagement of her authen- 
ticity, the sceptics call her a Myth, as if the 
Myths were not the oldest and most indestruc- 
tible facts in the history of the world. But by 
whatever name she may be called from that 
remotest period of the ethnic formations of 
humanity, the beginnings of nations, even unto 
this day, have her arduous questions been pro- 
pounded, and always with no jot or tittle of the 
old penalty abated — a right true answer or cer- 
tain overwhelming ruin. 

On no habitable summits of the earth, in any 
age of human history, have questions of a higher 
import or involving mightier interests, secular 
and eternal, been put to the sons of men, than 
those that to-day so urgently press themselves 
upon the consideration of the people of these 
United States. Nor can their just solution be 
any longer avoided or delayed, under forfeit- 
ures more disastrous and deplorable than any 
people ever before were called upon to pay. 
For this is the nineteenth century of the Chris- 
tian era, and we live under its Master's unfail- 
ing word — " Unto whom much is given, much 
will be required." Very necessary is it then, 



56 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



that we should lift ourselves intelligently to the 
moral level of these questions, and iu tlie faith 
that truth alone has the right to reign over the 
world and to govern its facts, without attempt- 
ing to antici[)ate or forestall the final disposi- 
tions of the Infinite Providence, make our 
answer feai'lessly, in the light of that Wokd, 
and of history. 

And first of all, in the order of events as 
well as of the argument, it is demanded of us 
to answer by what kigiit we call ourselves a 
nation, and claim to hold and rrdc as one indi- 
visible DOMAIN', all these broad territories, 
stretching from ocean to ocean. 

The question is asked upon quite another and 
higher authority than that of any Confederate 
States' president or congress. ISTor does the 
roar of their cannon constitute the most urgent 
reason for its prompt answer. That became 
necessary only in consequence of the obdurate 
dulness of the national ear to " the still small 
voices." Even so has it been from the begin- 
ning — " the still small voices " once become in- 
audible, and the Supreme Powers must needs 
commission the loud and ever louder ones, even 
unto the roar of whole batteries of rifled cannon. 
Already at Sumter, Bull Kun, and elsewhere 
have these batteries belched forth such a denial 
of the nation's right to national existence, as 
leaves no doubt of the internecine nature of the 
hatred that so vents itself, and demonstrates 
the imminency of the crisis that urges us to a 
thorough examination of the grounds upon 
which the great battle must be fought, in order 
Ihat our batteries may be planted ui)on the im- 
movable foundations laid by the fatlicrs, and 
our cannon charged, not alone with the ele- 
mental forces of carbonized saltpetre, but, con- 
substantial with these, with the far more invin- 
cible logic of that Divine Word, which in the 
beginning became flesh in this nation, and will, 
in defiance of all the powers of darkness that 
assail it, have free course and be glorified in its 
history. 

Let us, then, to begin with, clear our minds 
of that atheistical, impious, secession vagary — 
that a nation is a species of heterogeneous, 
accidental aggregation of men or of states, lield 
together by a sort of "balance of interest trea- 
ty " or contract of co-partnership, entered into 
for the purpose of establishing and carrying on 
the hitherto highly profitable business of stump- 
speech making for "Buncombe," securing "the 
spoils of victory " in certain annual games of 
ballot-box stuflTing, and breeding " colored chat- 
tels " for the shambles of king cotton. This 
notion of the essential nature and purposes of 
our national existence, has now for several 
years been entertained, and by many distin- 
guished politicians and leaders of the people, 
with no little energy, reduced to practice in 
these United States, — with what effect begins 
to be apparent enough. No more false or fatal 
emanation from the bottomless ])it ever lodged 
itself in the human understanding, and the 
necessity of dislodging it with the truth seems 



just now very urgent indeed, to the present 
writer. 

The TRUTH being that, even in the most rig- 
orous scientific definition of it, a nation is an 
organized body, and by no means a mere ag- 
gregation of individual men or independent 
communities ; and so, like every other organ- 
ized body, must, from the very nature of things, 
incorporate its own distinctive organic force or 
Idea. Indeed, it is only in virtue of this dis- 
tinctive organic idea, that it becomes a nation 
at all. To this merely formal statement of the 
truth, history, irradiated by the light of eigh- 
teen Christian centuries, adds a far sublimer 
derivation and broader scope. It declares, that 
in the great epochs of the world, the Omnipo- 
tent Providence confides to a chosen people the 
revelation of a great truth, a great regenerative 
IDEA ; and that from thenceforth, that idea be- 
comes for that people the germ of its national 
life and civilization — its soul, without which it 
could no more be a nation, than the human 
body could be a man without the human soul. 
For in this more excellent sense, a nation is but 
a larger form of humanity, a grander Cosmos 
or receptacle of the Divine Presence in the 
world. And it is this Presence, this fundamen- 
tal Idea, which constitutes the real substance 
of the national life, and determines the legiti- 
mate character and course of the national de- 
velopment and civilization. 

Tins presence of a divinely posited funda- 
mental Idea, as vital force in the ethical evolu- 
tions and growth of nations, is the highest, 
grandest fact in the liistory of the race. The 
sublimest theme of the oldest Scriptures is this 
doctrine of the genesis of all things from the 
Spirit " moving upon the face of the deep ; " 
the first product being light, thouglit, idea — 
and then the idea emerging into articulate word, 
a FACT in time. Not only the solid earth, upon 
which to-day beats the heavy tramp of our 
armies, was so founded, but so were embodied 
and established all the several nations that have 
dwelt upon its surface, even unto that one 
whose " covenant of life "bears date on the 
fourth day of July, 1770, and contains these 
ever-memorable words, then first in the provi- 
dential unfolding of the ages made audible to 
the ears of men : 

" All men aue created equal, endowed by 
THEIR Creator with the inalienable rights 

OF LIFE, LIBERTT, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPri- 

N'ESS." 

"America," said the great Earl of Chatham, 
in a memorable debate in the English House 
of Lords in 1770, " was settled upon ideas of 
liberty." By what Promethean struggles has 
every simplest truth, every human right, to get 
itself established on the 'earth ! "What a ca- 
reer had that English humanity to run from 
whence America sprung, before even the dim- 
mest adumbration of human liberty could 
emerge into articulate expression, and obtain 
for itself some faint acknowledgment as natural 
human right ; some dubious authority as the 



DOCUMENTS. 



57 



Common Laio ! And even now, it is only 
where that law prevails that any such liberty 
exists. For wiierever the civil or Roman law 
is supreme, such liberty as it recognizes exists 
only as a franchise, as founded in the idea of a 
grant from lord or sovereign to his subject; and 
the idea has proved itself stronger than all the 
might of the people. No number of French 
revolutions, not even a "reign of terror," has 
been able to prevail against it. Is it not neces- 
sary, then, to believe in the solidity and 
strength of ideas ? The very fact is, that the 
whole interminable web of human history is 
woven, " upon the roaring loom of time," of 
nothing else but ideas. 

Doubtless the words of the wise old states- 
man were most true: " America was indeed 
settled npon ideas of liberty," but not of liber- 
ty only. Ideas of a still broader scope and 
grander aim, wrought silently but strenuously 
in that settlement ; ideas originating in the 
advent of the divine Manhood into the world, 
and the sublime transfigurations thereby eftect- 
ed in the status and history of the race ; ideas 
of the equal dignity and worth of the common 
humanity, in its own spiritual substance, as the 
begotten of God, the bearer of his image, the 
continent of his presence in the world, and, by 
right of its own nativity, endowed Avith the 
faculty of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." In no merely pagan age, under no 
merely pagan development, could this idea have 
been evolved. All tlie previous ages of Hebrew 
and heathen longing and endeavor were neces- 
sary, doubtless, to the great gestation and the 
coming of that " fulness of time." But then, 
as a condition precedent, the highest, divinest 
man must have the humblest parentage, the 
lowest birthplace, most necessitous life, and 
most ignominious death. So much must be- 
come a fact of historj', and to this fact must be 
conjoined the idea, not less a truth, that this 
humblest, most stricken man was a Divine 
Presence — the very Logos of God — the Light 
of the world. Tliis, and eighteen hundred years 
beside, of human etTort and travail, of human 
failure and divine grace, were required to re- 
habilitate lunnan nature with its original divine 
right of sonship to God, and to evolve the great 
regenerative idea upon which America was 
founded, and in which lie enwombed the germ 
and vital forces of its whole national life, civili- 
zation, and well-being. 

What less than this idea of the consubstan- 
tial equality of all men — of man in his own 
substance as man, without regard to the acci- 
dents of birth, fortune, education, or com- 
plexion — could have supplied a ground broad 
enough upon which to found a nationality, 
whose membership from the beginning was i^" 
tended to embrace the outcasts and exp el- 
ated of all the other nations and races of men ; 
and to whom should be given a whole con- 
tinent for work-field ? 

The advocates of what is called conservatism 
in England, wi.:-' ;jas come to mean a blind 



perpetuity of legalized wrong, seem just now 
to take heart and jubilate amazingly over what 
they call a " failure of the democratic experi- 
ment." The men who for eight hundred years 
have held the proceeds of the great robbery 
committed by the hordes of AVilliam the Con- 
queroi", and the men who have cunningly filched 
and funded the profits of the labor of the Eng- 
lish worker for the same time, may naturally 
enough rejoice over even a semblance of failure 
of a system founded in ideas of liuman equality, 
and the right of the humblest man to enjoy the 
benefits of his own labor. But let them be as- 
sured that, whatever may be the issue of the 
present struggle in this country, there is not 
the least ground for their jubilation. In the 
first place, the " disruption " upon v^hich they 
rely has arisen wholly out of a pract'cal repu- 
diation of the ideas upon which oi.r " demo- 
cratic institutions " were founded, and by no 
means out of any inherent defect in these ideas. 
In the second place, if the conspirators of the 
South should succeed in making the disruption 
permanent, and in founding a State upon a sys- 
tem which accomplishes even a worse robbery 
of human rights than that upon which older 
aristocracies are founded, it will not in the 
least constitute a failure of " democratic insti- 
tutions," but rather purify and reinvigorate 
them, giving them new scope, power, and dig- 
nity, in the face of which no such system could 
long endure. 

The truth is, that the perpetual mutations 
and revolutions that so convulse and afflict 
European society have their source in the an- 
tagonisms arising out of the circumstantial, the 
accidental, in human condition, and the over- 
whelming predominance of the class interests 
upon which that society is founded. Only upon 
that which is in itself durable, only upon the 
permanent element in human nature — the eipial 
dignity and worth of manhood in its own spirit- 
ual substance — can any nationality or social 
polity be founded, which shall at once be per- 
manent in its own nature and admit of a free 
development in all of its conditions. This is 
the ground of Christianity — the ground npon 
which God founds his own government of the 
world — the ethical evolutions of his own provi- 
dence, and, as a great product of tlnit provi- 
dence, of our nationality and free democratic 
institutions. 

And so we reach the answer to the question, 
as to the nature of that right by which we are 
authorized to call ourselves a nation. The 
right inheres in the idea contained in the great 
Declaration — " All men are created equal, en- 
dowed by their Creator with the inalienable 
r' jilts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness," — and is inseparable from it. But no 
spiritual entity, no idea, can be maintained in 
the world, without giving it a body — without 
making it a fact. And herein consists the hu- 
man function in the ethical evolutions of his- 
tory. The idea is the gift of God — to trans- 
mute it into fact, into institutions, manners, 



58 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



and laws, is tlie work of man. In no other 
way can the fundamental idea of our nation- 
ality be maintained and made to bear its legiti- 
mate fruit, but by making it, in all its grand and 
beneficent meaning, the basis of the actual 
state and condition of the whole body of the 
nation in all the relations of its membership. 
In this idea consists the true life and real unity 
of the nation, its life and unity in its immortal 
substance. The ethnic formation, the body of 
the nation, is but the product of this idea, and 
that portion of it only in which the idea lives 
and is faithfully developed hold the right of 
nationality — are, in fact, the nation. 

Very important is it at this conjuncture in 
our national history, that all men should clearly 
comprehend the nature of this life and the na- 
ture of that by which it may be fatally injured 
and subverted. By no amount of material 
power, by no number of battalions, can it be 
seriously aftected or endangered, so long as the 
idea in which it subsists is retained in fall force 
and virtue to vivify the hearts of the people. 
On the other hand, that which attacks, weak- 
ens, and tends to obliterate this idea, is to be 
regarded as the implacable enemy to whom no 
quarter can be given. For as surely as the 
great oak of the forest begins to wither and 
decay the moment it ceases to obey the vital 
force contained in the germ from whence it 
sprung — the moment it ceases to groio in ac- 
cordance with the law of its own organic life 
— so surely does a people begin to fall into ruin 
the moment it ceases to develop the fundamen- 
tal idea of its own nationality, to work out its 
own appropriate civilization and history. 

Can there be any doubt, then, as to our su- 
premest, most sacred national obligations ? 
What else from the beginning had we to do 
but faithfully to execute "the great providential 
trust confided to us, to make the broadest 
meaning of that solemn Declai'ation fact in our 
history ? Was not this the immutable condi- 
tion of the covenant made by the fathers with 
God and humanity, in virtue of which we be- 
came invested with the divine right of nation- 
ality, and for the faithful performance of which 
they solemnly pledged, not only their own, 
but, as its representative head, " the life, the 
fortune, and sacred honor " of the nation ? 

Has that solemn pledge been kept ? Have 
we as a people fulfilled the conditions of tliat 
covenant of national life ? What, in truth, has 
been hitherto the purport of our national en- 
deavors? Not to speak hereof the unparal- 
leled development of our material interests and 
our really great achievements in wjiatever ap- 
pertains thereto ; not to speak of the genuine, 
manly work performed with "axe and plough 
and hammer," or of its appropriate reward, 
abundant crops of " Indian corn, and cotton, 
and dollars " — with our much vaunted fhee 
PRESS, PULPIT, and ballot nox — what have we 
really done, up to this year of our Lord, 1862, 
toward the accomplishment of the great ])rovi- 
dential undertaking committed to our hands ? 



The ear of the ancient Inscrutable Questioner 
listens for a right true answer ; and however 
deeply the national brow may be sufi'used with 
the blush of shame, a right true answer is su- 
premely necessary to the future safety and 
well-being of the nation. And the truth, 
coined into the gentlest admissible terms, de- 
clares that to us as a people, whatever else we 
may have done of good or left undone of evil, 
belongs the distinguished infamy of having 
given birth to the device and developed into an 
institution., a scheme of human degradation in 
which a human soul is held bereft, not only of 
all civil liberty and rights, but of all its natural 
attributes — is held to be not aj^^rson, but a bit 
of prope7-ty — not to possess even a hicinan life, 
but only that of a least, and as a beast, is kept 
for breeding other beasts, (often with white 
men for sires,) for the public markets of the 
world ; a scheme which rolls back the civiliza- 
tion of two thousand years, blots out the cen- 
tral idea of Christianity, and reestablishes a 
worse than pagan barbarism ; and all this 
in the face of the great announcement made 
eighteen centuries ago of God's all-beneficent 
intention to redeem, emancipate, and glorify 
the nature of hie ofl:spring — human nature. 
For what other meaning is there in that divine 
assumption of this nature, in its humblest con- 
dition ? what other significance in the bewil- 
dered history of these centuries ? 

A cruel system of servitude did indeed exist 
among the ancient nations. But its fundamen- 
tal idea was the idea of authoriti/ — authority 
absolute and monstrous, but still of authority 
and not oi 2^ropsrty. In ancient Greece, where 
the slave had no political or civil rights, his 
quality as a human being, as a man, was re- 
spected. It Avas only in Rome, that ultimate 
flower of all pagan cupidity and rapine, wliere 
slavery existed on a scale so monstrous as al- 
most to defy belief, tliat something like the 
Amerian idea prevailed. But even in the 
Rome of the emperors, the manhood of the 
slave was not totally annihilated. The old 
pagan master regarded his seni rather as min- 
isters to his comfort or luxury, than as tlie sub- 
jects of traffic or a source of revenue. " In the 
household of an opulent senator," says Gibbon, 
" might be found every profession, either lib- 
eral or mechanical. Youths of a promising 
genius were carefully instructed in the arts and 
sciences." And yet, God in history never taught 
any truth more clearly or inore emphatically, 
than that Roman slavery was the great enemy 
by whicli that grandest fabric of pagan civili- 
zation, the Roman nationality and empire, was 
utterly overthrown and subverted. 

As the primeval j)erfidy, the primal thought of 
evil, whicii culminated in tiie first revolt of arro- 
gant sellishness and pride, liad birth in the high- 
est circles of created intelligences, so it would 
seem that only among a people founded upon 
ideas of liberty and the equal dignity and worth 
of manhood, could a scheme so atrocious as 
Southern slavery be brought forth. An arch- 



DOCUMENTS. 



59 



an"-el only could become the father of lies. 
Only the iivier light of a people to whom the 
divine Manhood had been revealed, could be- 
come such utter darkness. 

Surelv a most strar -e and portentous result 
of national endeavor, . view of the point from 
whence the nation c fortli upon its career, is 
this American sla^ /—this institution ot the 
spoliation of hump .lature. For the gist of the 
great evil does nt so much consist in the out- 
rage committed against the civil rights ot the 
enslaved, atrocious as that is, as that in their 
persons an irretrievable offence is perpetrated 
a'^ainst our common humanity, and thence such 
a fatal injury to the vital idea of our nationality 
and civilization, as, if persisted in, we may not 
even hope to survive. For if the teutu set 
forth ia that solemn national Declaration shall 
not succeed in making all men in this land free, 
then the false shall triumph in mnkmg all men 
slaves. This is the inexorable divine law, ot whacli 
all human history is but the illustration, ihe 
great false pretence, Avhich the nation still so 
insanely persists in— the great lie it so shame- 
lessly holds in its right hand- by a fatal lawot 
accretion shall draw to them all other perfidies 
until the national heart and consciousness shall 
become so darkened and depraved that no sense 
of truth, human or divine, no love or reverence 
for any human rights, liberty, or manhood sha I 
remain, and the national life and history shall 
become a very "devils' chaos instead ot a God s 
cosmos " In the communities where the malign 
and lying spirit of slavery has taken the most 
complete possession of the understandings and 
hearts of men, this transformation seems already 
to have taken place. So utterly has all sense 
of the most sacred human rights and obligations 
been extinguished, all fealty and patriotism eat- 
en out, as to make the most atrocious villanies 
appear like innocence, and treason against the 
grandest fabric of human liberty ever erected 
on earth, like the noblest of civic virtues— nay, 
more, like the most sacred and divinely imposed 
duties. Says the Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Or- 
leans, a man of learning and thought, and a great 
authority in these communities, " The great 
providential trust to the South is to conserve 
and perpetuate the institution of domestic sla- 
very. Let us take our stand on the highest 
MORAL auouND, and proclaim to all the world 
that ice hold this trust from God. In defending 
it, to the South is assigned the high p)osition of 
defending before all nations, the cause of religion 
and all truth.''' 

What else is this, but the ravings of the mad- 
ness and dementation engendered by slavery ? 
"What must be the condition of a people, whose 
eeers and prophets have become so profoundly 
unconscious of their own utter demoralization? 
By a like process have perished the most pow- 
erful and proudest nations of antiquity. And 
so inevitably must this nation iierish, unless it 
can be awakened to its true peril and moved to 
expurgate and cast out forever the insidious per- 
fidy, the fatal lie, that corrupts and consumes 



its vitals. For let not tbese people be deemed 
worse by nature than others. It is but the 
blind and malignant spirit of slavery that speaks 
with their tongue, and with their hands brand- 
ishes its weapons. Is this a spirit any longer to 
be paltered with? Ought we any longer toen- 
tertain its insidious, treacherous sophistries? 
If that were possible, could we afford, even at 
the price of the restitution of the external unity 
of the nation, to lose the light and glory of its 
internal life— at the price of saving our national 
body, can we afford to barter away our national 

soul? _ , 

We stand then at this pass. Wo know from 
whence and upon what conditions we hold our 
right to national existence and well-being. AVe 
know, beyond a peradventure, the implacable 
enemy that seeks their destruction. We know- 
even, that by a necessity of its own nature, it 
cannot do otherwise than destroy them utterly, 
unless itself be destroyed. What else, in fact^, 
is that open treason to the external unity of 
the nation, that to-day with so much " pomp 
of circumstance " sets its battle in array, but 
the outward expression of the far more danger- 
ous treason that now for many years has been 
building its intrenchments in the national heart 
and sapping the very foundations of the national 
civilization and strength ? What else, but the 
necessary outbreak of that subtle and malign 
perfidy that for a generation has burrowed in 
the national understanding, spaAvning its lies 
and sowing them broadcast through the land, 
until now, like the dragon's teeth, they spring 
np armed men— traitors. Or, does any man 
not stone-blind, believe that if to-day the Unica 
were to be restored, and with it the pernicious 
cause of its disruption placed again under the 
o-uarantees of the Constitution, the nation would 
not therebv be set back, to begin the great war 
over a«-ain, unless slavery had thus secured to 
itself t'lie mastery of the National Government ? 
This is its supremest necessity, and the instinct 
of this necessity, conjoined with a conviction 
that the mastery of the National Government 
had escaped from their hands, compelled^ the 
slavemasters to undertake disunion at all risks. 
On this point we have done these men a kind 
of injustice. Slavery can no more exist under 
a government of practical freedom, than liberty 
can exist under a government mastered by 
slavery. It is but the common exigency of 
c\evy'legally estaUished human wrong. To se- 
cure itself against the attacks of light and 
truth, against the perpetual encroachmfcrts, 
" coercions " of human progress, it must bo 
master of the power that makes the laws. 
Under whatever political system or form of 
government, therefore, slavery shall hereafter 
be permitted to exist on this continent, whether 
in a Southern confederacy or a restored Union, 
it will, it must, from a necessity of its own self- 
preservation, be master of the Government and 
national institutions, and through these, of the 
national life, civilization, and history. There 
is then no alternative for this nation ; either ita 



60 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61 



own original, divinely endowed life must be 
surrendered up, or it must conquer and destroy 
its unappeasable enemy, slavery. 

That the nation possesses the requisite via- 
terial jjower to make this conquest, is not gen- 
erally questioned, at least in the loyal States — 
to say nothing of i\iQ,2)ercnnial strength inherent 
in the great idea of our nationality, which still 
abides witJi them, and day and night cries out 
for its riglit to conquer in this war. The ques- 
tion about whicli men seem to doubt, and our 
public functionaries hesitate, is, has the nation 
the right to use the means of conquest which 
it possesses? It is said the national Constitu- 
tion forbids it ; that, by some extraordinary 
ineptitude, this great palladium of liberty lias 
the power only to cover and protect slavery. 
If this were true, the decisive answer would be 
that the Constitution was made for man, and 
not man for the Constitution. But it is a great 
defamation of that justly to be respected in- 
strument. In its own nature, as a form of 
national government, as the supremo law of the 
nation, it recognizes the nation's right of self- 
preservation, and to the use of all the means 
necessary to that end. It recognizes the exist- 
ence of the pi'esent most atrocious war, waged 
by the princes of the powers of slavery against 
the nation's life, and authorizes the sovereignty 
which it creates, to clothe itself with the rights 
and powers, known and acknowledged by all 
civilized nations as the laws of war ; and with 
which all States and communities in a state of 
war are invested, whether it be a national or a 
CTvilwai-. So that the powers of the National 
Government, administered in strictest conform- 
ity with the* Constitution, are just so far en- 
larged by a state of war, as are all the powers 
conferrred by the laws of war. To disregard 
these laws, and the powers which they confer 
in time of war, is just as unconstitutional, in 
the truest meaning and intent of that instru- 
ment, as it would be to exercise them in time 
of peace, '^ox is it by any means a matter of 
mere option with those upon whom the people 
have devolved the duty of carrying into eftect 
the rights and powers of ilieir Government, 
whether or not these ])0wers shall be exercised. 
On the contrary, by their official oaths, by all 
the most sacred obligations that can bind the 
consciences of men, they are bound to see to it, 
that, in the present exigency, the nation suffers 
no loss, loses no advantage, that might arise 
out of the exercise of these constitutional war 
powers. 

Already has the judgment of the nation and 
of history been pronounced upon the dastardly 
excuse, " a want of constitutional power," for 
the failure to suppress the rebellion in its very 
inception. No reversal of that judgn:ent is 
possible, so far as James Buchanan is concerned, 
Avhatever may be the issue of the present strug- 
gle. In the history of this country, in the 
memory of all the coining generations of men, 
his name while it lasts, will stand associated 
with the most worthless of his race — will serve 



as a by-word to illustrate the most utter desti- 
tution of all truth, valor, and manliness in high 
station, tlie most pitiful, perfidious, and coward- 
ly official failure that ever disgraced human na- 
ture ; unless, indeed, he shall have the good for- 
tune to be forgotten in the presence of some still 
more infamous official delinquency that awaits 
future developments in the history of our public 
functionaries. For, leaving out of the question 
the maxims of the highest order of statesman- 
ship, the briefest consideration of the laws of 
war and the powers thereby conferred upon the 
National Government, will serve to demon- 
strate, that if the servants of the {)eo])le, who 
have been intrusted with that sacred duty, fail 
to destroy the cause of the war and thereby 
save the life of the nation, a repetition of his 
excuse — " want of constitutional ])ower " — will 
not avail to save them from still profounder 
depths of public execration and infamy. 

Mr. Buchanan, yielding himself to the induce- 
ments with which the minions of slavery have 
so well known how to seduce or intinudate 
northern politicians, refused to take the first 
step against the insidious approaches of the 
enemy. In Ids last days it was Virginia's lote 
for the Union that served their purpose to in- 
fatuate and blind the pitiful " old public func- 
tionary." But all his life long he had been 
their willing bondman and hireling. As wages, 
they had given him the presidency, and as some 
semblance of excuse, he might set up the old 
maxim " honor amongst thieves." On the other 
hand, Mr. Lincoln, even when he accepted the 
presidential candidacy, knevf of the threats of 
the slave oligarchy to overthrow the government 
and destroy the nation. It was from the loyal 
people of the Fuee States that he received 
ills great office, in the face of these threats, 
and under the clearest and most solenni engage- 
ments, that even the jicaccful encroachments 
of slavery should be withstood and combated, 
with all the means and powers thus placed in 
his hands. While he put on his robes of office, 
slavery with the most audacious celerity be- 
came treason, then open rebellion, and to-day 
with its great army besieges the National Cap- 
ital — the implacable ]uiblic enemy of the nation, 
Mr, Lincoln, unlike Mr. Buchanan, did indeed 
"put his hand to the plough," and with a just 
sense of his position, took a first step in the right 
direction — ai)])ealed to the patriotism of the na- 
tion. Instantly it became apparent enough to 
v,"hom belonged the memories of Ihe IJevolu- 
tion, and the inheritance of the institutions and 
government founded by Vv'ashington and his 
com])atriots. The lines of loyalty were found 
to coincide exactly with the boundaries of sla- 
very. "Wbile on the one side of these boun- 
daries, the response to his ajipeal was a shout 
of derision, of liatred and defiance of that gov- 
ernment, on the other, twenty millions of free- 
men, acknowledging it as their most precious 
possession, with one heart and one voice rose 
up to its defence. Mr. Lincoln got more than 
he asked. With urgent alacrity, the nation en- 



DOCUMENTS. 



61 



do wed its government with all its possessions 
and all its power. An army of the sons of the 
people, such as no monarch ever owned, has 
now for months, with hnrning heart, awaited 
its orders to execute the righteous judgment 
of Eternal Justice against the great treason. 
On the part of the people there has been no 
shadow of failure — no quailing — no hesitancy. 
It is thcj Government only that seems to falter. 
There runs a rumor through the country, that 
the same insidious, treacherous influences which 
spellbound Mr. Buchanan to his ruin are at 
this very hour laying close siego to the heart 
of Mr. Lincoln. To-day, it is said, the same 
old arch-liar and deluder, assuming the guise 
of Kentucky's love of the Old Union, is at work 
blinding the eyes and binding the hands of the 
President, and so expects to gain the time 
necessary to send his embassies abroad, and en- 
gage the services of other and mightier forces 
to achieve for him the conquest he seeks — our 
national ruin. In the presence of their great 
sacrifices, is it strange that this rumor should 
stir all loyal hearts with an inexpressible an- 
guish and indignafapn ? Abuudautly provided 
with a great nation's armed strength and will 
to vindicate and reestablish God's justice and 
the rights of human nature in this land, and 
so become the founder of a grander civilization 
and well-being than ever before blessed man- 
kind, no man in any age of history ever stood 
upon a sublimer eminence than Mr. Lincoln. 
If, under any inducements, from whence soever 
they may arise, whether from Kentucky, the 
bottomless pit, or the impotency of his own 
heart, he shall prove recreant to the great 
trust, and cower, and finally fail in his gi'eat 
office, God pity him ! for wiiat Avords would 
serve adequately to portray the ignominy of 
his doom. 

Meantime, if one may believe the "Washing- 
ton newspaper reporters, there goes on at the 
White House a jovial round of feasting, flirting, 
and dancing. Hilarious stories are repeated 
and old jokes bandied from President to minis- 
ter, and from minister to President, and through 
the wreaking fumes and smoke of cabinet coun- 
cils, no official eye discerns " the lingers of the 
hand " that comes forth to write upon the 
wall. 

It is by no means my purpose here to enter 
into any special exposition of the laws of war, 
but only to indicate a few general principles, 
and the nature of the powers conferred by these 
laws upon every form of government in a state 
of actual war. 

According to the highest authorities on the 
laws of nations, these rights and powers are de- 
rived from one single principle — from the ob- 
ject of a just war, which is to prevent ov punish 
injury ; that is to say, to oltain justice It/ force. 
"In order, therefore, that a belligerent power 
may be entitled to the benefits of these rights 
and powers, the war that it wages must be 
just, and prosecuted for a just and legitimate 
end. Thence, the end being lawful, ho who has 
- Sup. Doc. 5 



the right to pursue the end, has the right to 
employ all the means necessary for its attain- 
ment, provided only that these means are not 
in themselves contrary to the laws of nature." 

"That is to say, since the object of a just 
war is to suppress injustice and compel justice, 
we have a right to put in practice against our 
enemy every measure that will tend to weaken 
or disable him from maintaining his injustice. 
To this end, we are at liberty to choose any 
and all such methods as we may deem most 
efficacious. "We have thence a right to deprive 
our enemy of the possession of every thing 
which may augment his strength, and enable 
liim to make and carry on the war. And if 
that of which we have a right to deprive our 
enemy can help us, Ave have a right to convert 
it to our own use, or to destroy it, Avhenever 
that is necessary to the main object, Avhich is 
to disable our enemy and destroy the cause of 
the Avar. 

"And thence, ulthnately, all other methods 
proving insufficient to conquer his resistance, 
Ave have a right to put our enemy to death. 
And this npon the simple ground, that if Ave 
Avere obliged to submit to his Avrong rather 
than hurt him, good men Avould inevitably be- 
come the prey of the Avicked." 

" Under the name of enemy is comprehended 
not only the first author of the Avar, but like- 
Avise all those Avho join, abet, or aid in the sup- 
port of his cause. So also, as between belliger- 
ent poAvers actually at Avar, all rights, claims, 
and liabilities aftect the Avholo body of the com- 
munity, together with every one of its mem- 
bers." 

At this moment, slavery having organized its 
powers into a regular form of government, Avith 
all the functions of sovereignty, and embodied 
and sent into the field a militarj- force, if not 
equal to that of a first-class European power, 
formidable enough to hold in check the great 
army of the nation, it is difficult to comprehend 
Avhat real advantage can possibly arise to the 
national cause in ignoring the fact, and con- 
ducting the great struggle on the theory, which 
seems to prevail in the "Washington Cabinet, 
that the rebellion is but a temporary insurrec- 
tion and not a civil Avar. To the rebels them- 
selves and their concealed allies in the loyal 
States there inure great benefits frcun this the- 
ory. For while slavery is left free to hurl its 
deadly missiles at the nation's heart, the tegis 
of the Constitution is made to cover and protect 
the heart of the great treason. On the other 
hand if, in spite of all constitutional or legai 
quibbles, this is a real Avar — a civil Avar, then 
the rights and poAvers arising under the laAvs of 
Avar clearly belong to the National Government, 
are indeed as truly Avithin the purport of the'j 
Constitution, as if conferred by express pro-l 
vision, and in the words of our Avisest states-j 
man, John Quincy Adams, '•'' ahundantly suffi- 
cient to hurl the institution into the gulf.'''' 

"While slavery remained upon its own ground, 
obedient to the Constitution, a due regard for \ 



62 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



the requirements of tliat instrument might just- 
ly be held to restrain the National Government 
from dealing with it, as in its own nature it de- 
served. But the moment it threw off" its obli- 
gations to the Constitution, and set at defiance 
the authority of the nation, the question of its 
existence became wholly discharged of all con- 
stitutional prohibitions and restraints; and 
from thenceforth the National Government "was 
imperatively bound to take possession of it as a 
national affair; to deal with it, as with any 
other question vitally affecting the national 
well-being, on its own merits, and dispose of 
it with an enlightened, fearless, and far-reaching 
statesmanship. 

But what a bottomless slough of absurdities, 
are even honest men compelled to swelter in, 
when once they have put their hand in that c;f 
slavery, and allowed themselves to be led by it! 
It is said the rebels have indeed committed a 
great outrage upon the Constitution, but that 
that is no reason why the loyal people of the 
Union, and their Government, should do the 
same thing ly abolishing slavery, the Coiisfitu- 
tion containing no express provision giving them 
that power. As if the Constitution did contain 
an express provision authorizing the blockade 
of Southern j)orts, or fdling them up with stone- 
filled hulks — the burning of the rebels' dwell- 
ings, imprisoning and slaying his white chil- 
dren, and sweeping his whole land with the 
besom of destruction. Only one act, it seems, 
imposed by the terrible exigencies of war, is un- 
constitutional, and that is, the destruction of 
its cause, Slavery ! No wonder that the great 
heart of the Avorld swells witli a suppressed 
shout of derision at such acumen and states- 
manship. Wae and its laws alone, justify and 
make constitutional any of these acts. And 
much more do they justify and command the 
utter extinction of its acknowledged Gausc. 

War has been justly termed the " scourge of 
God." And regarding it from the grounds of 
the broadest Christian statesmanship, it m:iy, 
indeed, be pronounced an evil in itself, in its 
own nature, so enormous, as never to be justi- 
fiable exce])t on the ground that the continued 
existence of its cause is a still greater evil. I 
believe the universal conscience of Christendom, 
if appealed to, would confirm this position. To 
destroy the existence of the cause, is then the 
only legitimate aim and end in the prosecution 
of any war. It follows, that a war carried on 
for any other purpose, or with any other intent 
than that of destroying or removing its cause, 
jS not only unjustifiable, but a great mistake, or 
a great crime. Only on the groimd that sla- 
very, the admitted cause of the present war, is 
such an evil, and that the war is aimed at its 
extinction, can it be justified before God and 
! mankind. 

The existence of an apparent doubt on this 
point in the minds of the men, upon whom 
rests the momentous responsibility of conduct- 
ing the war to its highest, grandest issues; and 
their paltering hesitancy to carry it on, upon 



its own basis, as wah, and for the achievement 
of a great and just end, is the source of dis- 
heartening anxieties and doubts, that wound 
and stagger the popular confidence of the loyal 
States. Nor is this by any means its only mis- 
chief. It gives occasion for an undeserved de- 
famation of Republican Institutions, and con- 
tempt of our national chiu-acter and aims 
abroad, that threaten us with the loss of the 
respect of other nations, if not with their active 
hatred and hostilitj'. 

Nor, on another ground than any hitherto 
set forth, can this parianount question be any 
longer left to be triffed with by cpaulcttcd offi- 
cials, high or low, without peril to the suprem- 
acy of the civil power of the nation, and shame 
to the representatives of the people. The 
powers conferred by the laws of war belong, 
jiriniarily, to the supreme authority of the 
State, and, under our form of government, by 
no means, without its authorization, to any one 
of its administrative or executive functionaries. 
The Constitution itself takes on these powers, 
and Congress is its proper ergan for their dis- 
tribution — for giving tlieni«)ractical authority. 
Besides the fact, that thcrlegislative power is 
alone adequate to the determination of the 
great question — is alone adequate to foresee 
and provide for the future of the slave as well 
as of the nation — it is the most sacred duty of 
the peojile's representatives, in the presence of 
the great military force called forth by the ex- 
igencies of the hour, to watch with a most 
jealous eye every attempt of its chiefs to over- 
step their function, as the arm ar.d servant of 
tlie civil power. Most calamitous and deplor- 
able, indeed, would it be, if the war to restore 
the external unity of the nation should end, 
not only in reinstating its cause, as a supreme 
power in the State, but in giving the people a 
military autocrasy for their free republican in- 
f-titutions. In a war carried on for the main- 
tenance of authority only — for empire merely, 
this is an evil consequence, greatly to be feared. 
On the other hand, let your battle be for a 
great idea — let your army be inspired by a 
great sentiment of human justice and liberty, 
and the danger is cut oft' at its very source. 

But why should the people of the United 
States, or their Government, seek to shuffle off 
the '' inevitable logic of events," or squander 
the providences of God ? The conspirators 
against the life of the nation plant themselves 
openly, squarely, on the ground of slavery. 
The war they wage is trammelled by no men- 
tal or moral reservations, no ambiguity of pur- 
pose. To make slavery triumj)h on this conti- 
nent, and to found upon it a social order and a 
State, is their loudly-vaunted aim in its i)rose- 
cution. The malign spirit has taken coini)lete 
possession of their souls ; they believe in it, 
are terribly in earnest about it, ready to die 
for it ! On the other side, on the part of the 
nation and its Government, what great purpose 
is set forth to justify, inspire, and sustain them, 
in the prosecutiou of so gigantic a struggle? 



DOCUMENTS. 



63 



Is it to restore tlie rebellious States to the 
Union, and slavery to the safeguards of the 
Constitution? To reestablish the fatal, malig- 
nant evil, not only in all its original power, but 
from the very nature of things to give it re- 
newed strength and vigor ! For they fall into 
a most pernicious error who imagine, that in 
some accidental or fortuitous way, slavery is to 
receive its death-wound in this war, even al- 
though it may end in its relistablishment. Let 
no such monstrous delusion be entertained. 
The ethical Providence of the world never re- 
turns upon its own footsteps. God wastes not 
a single one of His dispensations, repeats not 
one of man's neglected opportunities. Slavery 
must die, and die now, by the enlightened will 
of the nation, or the nation itself must die — 
must have its own heart eaten out by its poi- 
sonous, deadly virus. 

But without reference to this inevitable and 
final consummation, wliat a solecism in human 
affairs does this war present, when viewed 
from its own ground, as war, in the light of its 
own logic ! In the history of the world was it 
ever before proposed to " conquer a peace " by 
carefully maintaining the cause of the war? 
Was it ever before proposed " to tcealc.en and 
disahle " a powerful enemy by becoming the 
keeper, and enforcing the labor, of four mill- 
ions of his subjects, for his sole benefit and 
support ? To " overcome his resistance " by 
compelling a supply of the very means without 
which he would become utterly helpless? 
Suppose, for an instant, that these four millions 
of unwilling loorlcers^ from whose labor the en- 
emy draws his daily sustenance, were in a 
night to have the color of their skin changed to 
the Caucasian hue, and these white men were 
to send a message to the commander-in-chief 
of our armies, that they were loyal men, lovers 
of liberty and the Union, and only awaited his 
permission to rise in their might and with one 
fell swoop destroy the cause of the war, and 
tlie malignant power of the enemy. And sup- 
pose that this commander-in-chief should re- 
fuse tlie protFered assistance, and insist that his 
constitutional duty was, to employ his great 
army in standing guard over these wiUing al- 
lies of the nation, and compelling them to serve 
and support its implacable enemy. "What judg- 
ment would a skilful strategist, an able gen- 
eral, pass on such a plan for carrying on a great 
war? What would be the sentence of the na- 
tion and of mankind on such patriotism and 
statesmanship? And yet, is not this a sober 
statement of tho facts, as they present them- 
selves at this moment, with this difference only 
— that the men, who, the other day, with cries 
of joy, ran to embrace our army on the shores 
of Port Royal while its enemy Hed, had not all 
cuticles of the supposed color ? 

By what unparalleled infatuation is it, that 
even yet, after all the overwhelming proofs of 
the execrable character of slavery, the under- 
standings and hearts of our public men are en- 
thralled and awed in its presence — bound ab- 



jectly, as by a spell of Circe, to cringe and bow 
to its diabolical intimations. Under the pres- 
sure of the great exigency created by it, our 
rulers have not hesitated to set aside the most 
sacred rights guaranteed by tlie Constitution. 
In the name of national safety they have not 
hesitated to suspend the great writ of freedom, 
the habeas corpus, for two hundred years held 
sacred by all men speaking the English tongue, 
and to put manacles on the hands of American 
citizens. But to refuse any longer to stand 
guard over the rebel's slave, or, in the name of 
liberty, the rights of human nature and of na- 
tional existence, to permit his shackles to be 
knocked ofi", is a thing only to be thought of 
with fear and trembling — to be excused by all 
sorts of phrases, and to be waited for, until it 
gets i^se/^' transacted in some way not to excite 
tlie latent treason of the half-suppressed rebels 
of the Border States, who, in the name of the 
old master, slavery, and with the old insolence, 
are still permitted to dictate the policy of the 
national Government, and give the word of 
command to the national armies. While the 
earnest convictions of the loyal people of the 
free States, who furnish these armies, are flout- 
ed as fanatical and not to be regarded, on the 
ground, apparently, that their jiatriotism and 
love of country are unconditional. 

Is it not time, O men of America, rightful 
heirs of the great inheritance, that we sliould 
rouse ourselves to a sense of the true nature 
of the enemy we have to overcome, and of the 
deadly perils that environ us ? Look, I beseech 
you, at the battle-field, upon which we are called 
to pour out the blood of our sons — for wlio of 
us has not there a dear son ? — what a spectacle 
does it present! On the one liand stands tho 
great army of slavery, openly, boldly, proudly, 
in the name of Slavery, warring for its tri- 
umph. On the other hand stands the army 
of freedom, covertly, abjectly, in the name 
of Union, waging " a vague and aimless fight," 
but still for Slavery ! ! 

" One guards through love its ghastly throne, 
Aud Olio through fear to revereuce grown." 

How, think you, must such a battle end? 
Shall not slavery, that "dares and dares and 
dares," not rather triumph, than liberty that 
cowers and liides herself? Or, rnther, shall 
not liberty disown the cowardly, craven souls, 
that dare not fight openly in her name, and 
yield them up to become, in very fact, the 
" mudsills " of that hideous throne they so rev- 
erence ? 

Wo may not flatter ourselves: on this plan 
of tlie battle Ave need not hope to conquer. 
The inestimable sacrifices wo offer will be but 
vain oblations. To the Eternal Justice there is 
no sweet savor in them. O friends, we must 
not allow our children to be so driven "like 
dumb cattle " to the shambles. Let us demand 
an open fight on tho ground of the great decla- 
ration : " All men are created eql'al, en- 
dowed BY THEiK Creator with the inalien- 



64 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS !l 



012 026 319 



ABLE EIGHTS OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT 

OF HAPPINESS." Only in the strength of tlie great 
idea wbich it contains, have we the right even 
to ask to conquer. Only in its name dare we 
send forth our brave eons to die. Only with 
the consolation that they fell in the cause of 
liberty and the rights of humanity, shall we be 
able to assuage the griefs that must wring and 
break our hearts at their loss. , 

And you, elect of tlie people, who but now 
so eagerly persuaded them that you were the 
qualitied of God, and fit to keep watch and 
ward at the doors of that capitol, tbe chosen 
temple of liberty and tbe rights of humanity on 
this continent — is it not time that you should 
lift yourselves to the level of the great issue ? 
In the ethical evolutions of our national history, 
a second great eea presents itself — another 
" time to try men's souls " stands face to face 
with tbe present hour. The question is not 
now, as a high oiBcial personage seems to think, 
a merely technical, attorney one, of construing 
the letter of the Constitution, but of refounding 
the nation, and rehabilitating the national in- 
stitutions and Goverimicnt. Slavery by its own 
act has outlawed itself. The determination of 
its future status settles the whole matter in issue. 
To restore it now to the Union — to receive it 
again under the guarantees of the Constitution, 
would be nothing less than to rofound the na- 
tion upon it — to make it the basis of our na- 
tional institutions and the corner-stone of our 
future civilization and history. This calami- 
tous consequence is of the very nature of things, 
find can by no means be evaded when once the 
ignominious restitution shall have been accom- 
plished. 

Beside, who, except those " that have eyes 
and see not," can fail to understand the provi- 
dential intimation. These colored men of the 
South f.re the men whose blood should pay the 
price of their own redemption. If, in the pres- 
ent supreme hour, "there can be no salvation 
without the shedding of blood," they also should 
have the privilege of making the great sacrifice. 
It is the needed discipline and necessary prepa- 
ration for the possession of freedom, that they 
who seek it should be willing to die for it. It 
is for you to give them the opportunity — to 
organize and guide them into the ways of civil- 
ized warfare, instead of leaving them to grow 
into an irrepressible mass of barbarism, by and 
by to burst into a wild and all-devouring con- 
flagration. For the sake of our common human- 
ity, it is your most sacred duty to take posses- 
sion of their destiny, bound up as it is with that 
of the nation, and, by your wisdom and fore- 
sight, guide them on their road to freedom, and 
ours to national regeneration and glory. 

Hitherto, we have been able to answer to the 
reproaches of our fellow-men, on account of 
slavery, that its existence ante-dated the exist- 
ence of the nation, and that it was but an ex- 
traneous incident in its history, for which the 
founders were not responsible. But if now it 
shall be voluntarily takea back, into the bosom 



of the nation, we shall deserve, as we shall most 
surely receive, the open scorn of all mankind. 

But why should we not, in this imminent 
crisis of our national existence, lay to heart the 
great lesson of the ages — that the eternal Provi- 
dence, that shapes all human will and effort 
into history, even from a necessity of its own 
nature, cannot do otherwise than pursue, with 
an unappeasable divine hoetility, all false pre- 
tences and lies — cannotdo otherwise than blast, 
with a celestial, eternal hatred, the grandest 
human structures attempted on such founda- 
tions — sending false nations as easil}' as false 
men to judgment and eternal doom. 

Many centuries ago, in another far-off land, 
a favored people stood, like us, in the very 
pitch of a great national crisis. The all-benefi- 
cent Providence had presented to them, like- 
wise, the opportunity of refounding their nation- 
ality upon a basis of eternal truth — that "truth 
whereby all men are made free." The final 
question was put to them with the same terri- 
ble emphasis that to-day is put to us : "Whom 
will TE have, Barahhas or Jesus called the 
Christ ?" " Not He," they cried, " but Barabbas. 
Away with him to the cross; Barabbas is our 
man — give us Barabbas." And they got Barab- 
bas, and with him such guidance as a thief and a 
liar had to give. We know the result. A na- 
tion for whom the Deha Logoi had been written 
by God's own finger — who had stood at the 
nether part of the mount and seen with their 
own eyes "that God answered with a voice ; " 
— a peojilo who had Abraham to their father, 
and a long line of divinely inspired men for 
teachers and guides ; after eighteen hundred 
years of perpetual dispersion and dilapidation, 
from the hour of that fatal choice, are now, it 
is said, " prophetically crying ' old clo', old clo',' 
in all the cities of the world." 

Aud to-day, even in this very hour, in all the 
thoroughfares of the people, upon the very 
threshold of that capitol where you, their elect, 
deliberate to become more renowned than any 
Eoman Senate, or to sink into ignominious con- 
tempt and forgetfulncss, stands the old Inexorable 
Questioner, and demands a right true answer 
to the final, fateful question, "Whom will ye 
serve, slavery or fkeedom ? " 



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